White House floats $4.6M cut to tsunami warning system; move could be dire for North Coast, local officials say

Less than one year after the March tsunami devastated Crescent City's harbor, the Obama administration is moving to reduce funding for tsunami warning and preparedness programs operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by $4.6 million, according to the White House's 2013 budget.

If they go forward, the cuts could be very dangerous to the West Coast, Del Norte County's Emergency Services Manager Cindy Henderson said.

As soon as North Coast officials received news that a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Japan on March 11, 2011, local law enforcement and emergency crews began evacuating coastal areas.

Using information transmitted by a network of buoys that stretches across the Pacific Ocean, the Del Norte County Office of Emergency Services knew when the first tsunami surge was likely to hit and how big it could be, giving people time to get their boats out of the Crescent City Harbor, Henderson said.

Funding from the National Tsunami Mitigation Program, which pays for drills and other ways of educating the public, was also responsible for a smooth evacuation, she said.

"The National Mitigation Program was really instrumental in how we responded last year," she said. "I think this is very important to tsunami response and cutting this much funding, we could lose lives because of it."

Among the proposed cuts is a $1 million reduction for America's network of 39 high-tech buoys in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The buoys confirm if tsunamis are heading toward the U.S. and provide crucial details such as the height of the waves and when they'll hit land.

Some of the nation's top tsunami scientists say the proposed cuts are too risky.

"Given how little money it is and the concerns about human life, this is a poor place to cut," said John Orcutt, a professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla.

"It's just like large earthquakes," he said. "The half-life of attention is measured in shorter and shorter periods of time. Our memory isn't very long."

The proposed budget also would cut by nearly half the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, a NOAA initiative that has helped California and other coastal states coordinate tsunami warning systems, educate the public on evacuation routes and generate detailed computer models showing which coastal towns are most threatened.

NOAA officials say the cuts aren't sacrificing public safety. For one, they say the buoy system will still operate despite chances it will take longer for NOAA crews to repair broken buoys at sea. And the outreach programs already have created computer risk maps, paid for thousands of coastal warning signs and funded materials for schools and civic groups, said Susan Buchanan, a NOAA spokeswoman.

"People are more aware of tsunamis and better prepared to respond to them," she said. "The program was successful."

Orcutt said NOAA should trim from other areas, such as its satellite programs that are behind schedule. Meanwhile, critics are sounding the alarm.

"This is like a homeowner trying to economize by disconnecting the smoke detector," said Jeff Ruch, president of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit group that has raised the issue.

The buoy program, created in 1996, is of particular note.

Congress expanded it from six buoys to 39 after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The buoys, which cost about $400,000 each, are tethered to the ocean floor. They measure water pressure changes and seafloor movement, and send instant details about tsunamis to satellites. The data is used by NOAA's tsunami warning centers in Honolulu and Alaska to fine-tune tsunami alerts.

Today, 10 of the 39 buoys are inoperable, and that number could climb if $1 million is cut from the $11 million annual budget to operate the buoy system. NOAA says it will strive to keep no more than 11 out of service at a time.

Jane Hollingsworth, NOAA's tsunami program manager, said that because many of the buoys are in remote locations such as the South Pacific and rugged Alaskan coast, NOAA is looking to conserve resources by working with Australia, Russia and Japan to maintain and repair U.S. buoys.

She said seismic instruments first alert scientists to the risk of a tsunami.

"The initial warning is based on seismic data, which has nothing to do with these buoys," she said.

Yet NOAA leaders have said in the past that the buoys, known as DART -- for Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis -- are vital.

"The DART network serves as the cornerstone to the U.S. tsunami warning system," NOAA said in a March 2008 news release.

On the North Coast, the buoy system is the only warning system for tsunamis spawned by distant earthquakes, said Humboldt State University geology professor Bob McPherson. For near-source tsunamis, North Coast residents can usually feel the shaking and should know enough to get to higher ground, he said.

"Any cut on instrumentation that is there to protect us against these hazards is not good news," McPherson said. "We depend on the buoys. Anytime you cut back on maintenance or putting in new ones, that would always hurt us because we're so susceptible."

On March 11, the buoy network enabled scientists to track the tsunami and gave officials the ability to shut down the harbor two hours before the tsunami hit, and many boaters were able to take their crafts into safer waters, Henderson said. The county's emergency operations center went into full warning, collaborating with NOAA on when to activate the emergency sirens and send out emergency alerts.

The waves destroyed Crescent City Harbor, but no one was injured, she said. The sole death related to the tsunami was a 25-year-old man who had gone to the mouth of the Klamath River to photograph the surges.

"Everybody's just been really praising what Del Norte County did and how the community responded," Henderson said. "We lost no lives at the harbor. Boats that could get out were warned. The only corrective action we had on this whole thing is to work better on getting more mutual aid."

A 2009 research paper by NOAA scientists Luijun Chang, Chris Chamberlain and Vasily Titov said the buoys are NOAA's "primary source" of information for tsunami warning and forecast because, unlike seismic data or computer models, the buoys provide direct measurement and confirmation of tsunami waves.

After the 2004 tsunami that devastated Indonesia and other countries -- killing more people than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs combined -- Congress passed a law in 2006 to increase funding for tsunami buoys, research and preparedness. But that funding, $40 million a year for seven years, runs out Oct. 1. Although some reports say Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, may be working to reauthorize the law, no new bill has been introduced.

In recent years, California received about $1 million a year of the outreach money. The money paid for computer models showing how far inland waves could go, emergency drills, 3,200 warning signs from San Diego to Oregon and other materials. If Congress approves the Obama proposal, it would reduce the outreach program's current national budget from about $10 million to $6 million.

But more drills, evacuation plans and computer maps are needed, said Jim Goltz, the earthquake and tsunami manager for the California Emergency Management Agency from 2007 until December.

"Preparedness and public education is perishable," Goltz said. "People need to be reminded. It's just like earthquakes."

Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues for the San Jose Mercury News and can be reached at 408-920-5045 or at progers@mercurynews.com.